Nona the Ninth – Tamsyn Muir

This book wasn’t necessary. We take time out (as in, a book) to follow Nona - who appears to be a young adult, although she is only a few months old - in a city that is approximately an interstellar refugee camp. It is not a secret that she might be an instance of Harrowhark Nonegesimus - the protagonist of the previous book. As in the previous book, things don’t seem to make much sense for most of the book. As in the previous book, the author makes the reader work hard to pull together what sense is to be had. (Work hard and remember many details from the first two books.)

The author is skilled enough to pull it off - I read to the end and expect to read Alecto the Ninth - but the book didn’t reward the effort sufficiently. The book also loses points for a lengthy disguised info dump: We get to watch the Emperor tell someone his backstory.

I think this book could have been replaced by a few chapters of segue into the next book. I’d have preferred that.